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Nuclear power is too safe

jackdevanney.substack.com

21–30 of 201 posts

Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#21
post #6

If nuclear power was invented today, it would have been considered a breakthrough capable of changing the course of climate change dramatically. Since it exists for long and people formed an emotional reaction to incidents that were not that serious, while dying constantly from things they cannot see (like air pollution from coal), we are in this weird scenario where otherwise educated people say absolutely stupid th…

I don't agree. If it was invented today, you'd have the same fear-mongering, the same lobbying from the coal industry.

In addition, you'd also be lacking the decades of safety data that we can use to turn the tide.

Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#22
It's not just about life-years. It's about the risk of making significant stretches of land uninhabitable for a serious amount of time. 26 Chernobyl-like releases would have punched some serious holes in the map of the Western world. Furthermore, the 30-year argument sounds disingenuous ("LNT-Worshipping"? Really?) and the CO2 waste issue is mentioned where the nuclear waste issue is not.

Honestly, the whole thing feels like cheap propaganda.

Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#23
Somehow we collectively forget/ignore that coal power releases many times the radioactivity of nuclear power, and that is just dumped directly into the air. The numbers are not directly apples to apples but absolutely lead to more life/health loss from fossil nuclear radiation contamination than fission nuclear radiation contamination.

E.g:

https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/...

https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/do-coal-fired-power-sta...

Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#24
post #6

If nuclear power was invented today, it would have been considered a breakthrough capable of changing the course of climate change dramatically. Since it exists for long and people formed an emotional reaction to incidents that were not that serious, while dying constantly from things they cannot see (like air pollution from coal), we are in this weird scenario where otherwise educated people say absolutely stupid th…

> Regulations keep piling on, adding costs and construction time, with no measurable benefit other than political expediency.

Read the "Simple Sabotage Field Manual" and you'll understand why the red tape just grows. Big Energy Co's don't want their profits to decrease, and the people with the oil rights wouldn't own those nuclear plants and there is nothing stopping more companies from making competing systems as tech were to progress. Oil can be owned and protected by force. Thats the key difference.

Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#26
post #9

LOL. He laments how billions are spent for nuclear reactor safety and then uses the casualty numbers based on those billions being spent [1], to calculate the casualty impact of building nuclear factories with more abandon and without such spending (as if the numbers would be the same). Also hidden in the small print, the assumption that future accidents would be "no worse" that previous ones. Because, you know, that…

No, he uses numbers from an old regime of rules. Argues those were incredibly safe, and hence the newer stricter rules are unnecessary.

Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#27
Is that the new hot take after "costs are too high because scale is too small"?

There are many issues with the economics of nuclear power but too much safety isn't one of them. The Chernobyl comparison conveniently ignores the liquidators by only looking at residents. Residents that have been evacuated, mind you. Even if radiation is not as harmful long-term as the LNT model makes us believe, which might very well be the case, we have to keep in mind what the forced evacuation of, say, New York, or Singapore would cost.

On top of that, nuclear power needs a lot of water. This means they can become less reliable, especially once they age.

And while coal power plants are on their way out, it is important to note how they have improved in terms of exhausts. Filters are a thing nowadays.

Finally, we have to compare NPPs with the alternative and that's not coal but PV and wind power combined with a large battery storage. Such a system is so much easier to deploy and starts production pretty much immediately. Whatever the economics of an idealized NPP are, that last fact alone will be hard to beat.

All that being said, it's important to note that NPP are an option to combat climate change. Like hydrogen, they are a technology that doesn't look as good as renewables, but that doesn't mean we don't need them. In the end, we need to put a price on a ton of carbon dioxide and then done everything that is cheaper than that price to avoid it.

Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#28
post #9

LOL. He laments how billions are spent for nuclear reactor safety and then uses the casualty numbers based on those billions being spent [1], to calculate the casualty impact of building nuclear factories with more abandon and without such spending (as if the numbers would be the same). Also hidden in the small print, the assumption that future accidents would be "no worse" that previous ones. Because, you know, that…

Also not to mention that we’d have an additional 26 exclusion zones around blown up nukes.

I’d like to see the authors back-of-the-envelope maths for the economic impact of the two or three in the UK alone.

Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#29
post #6

If nuclear power was invented today, it would have been considered a breakthrough capable of changing the course of climate change dramatically. Since it exists for long and people formed an emotional reaction to incidents that were not that serious, while dying constantly from things they cannot see (like air pollution from coal), we are in this weird scenario where otherwise educated people say absolutely stupid th…

Regulations are also hitting coal hard, at least in Europe. UK got rid of coal.

The article is making it sound like coal plants can do whatever they want, while nuclear have it worse. I don't think the way is to lower the safety for nukes, but to raise the safety requirements of coal. This article sounds like someone claiming that airbags are barely used, and removing them is a good way to get cheaper cars for all at the low cost of a few thousand deaths.

Friendly reminder that half french nukes are plagued with leaks since the last year, and we would never know how serious they are or how close we were to a disaster. With current safety standards.

Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#30
post #22

It's not just about life-years. It's about the risk of making significant stretches of land uninhabitable for a serious amount of time. 26 Chernobyl-like releases would have punched some serious holes in the map of the Western world. Furthermore, the 30-year argument sounds disingenuous ("LNT-Worshipping"? Really?) and the CO2 waste issue is mentioned where the nuclear waste issue is not. Honestly, the whole thing fe…

Imagine two or three 30km radius circles taken out of the UK and how much that would cost.
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